A Second Chance at Goodbye
by Nehszriah
Summary: Clara and Ashildr have been travelling in for a while now, and now that she's ready to die, the former decides to give her boyfriend a proper goodbye.


A/N: The tumblr prompt for this one was "Clara and Me have been travelling for a while now and Clara decides it's time to return to Gallifrey and face the Raven, but before she does she makes one last stop on earth to say goodbye to Danny..." and since I'm hopelessly shipping Pinkwald over a year later, I ran with it.

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A Second Chance at Goodbye

"You sure about this?" Ashildr wondered. She placed a hand on Clara's shoulder, trying not to frown.

"Of course I'm sure," Clara assured. They were both staring at the door to their TARDIS, the moment beginning to weigh down upon them. It wasn't often when someone got to choose to cheat death for countless years, and it was rarer yet that the cheater came back on their own terms. She already knew that she was being incredibly selfish, but this was risking a lot.

She stepped out into the flat, so relieved that the Chameleon Circuit had stayed intact for as long as it did, else it wouldn't have fit inside the flat very well. It was a police box this time, just as the Doctor's was, and it made her feel nostalgic as she looked at the outside.

"Clara…? What are you doing here?"

Turning around, she saw Danny standing just outside the kitchenette. He was holding a half-eaten apple and was in his pants and a vest. To her, he was every bit as handsome and charming with a confused look on his face.

"Hi Danny," she finally choked out. "It's been a while."

"No it hasn't—I just saw you at work…"

"Yeah, and…" It was too difficult—in Danny's timeline, this was the last time they'd ever see one another, because the following afternoon was the one where he was hit. She broke into sobs and Danny came to her, wrapping his strong arms around her.

"What's that old general done to you this time?" he asked.

"Nothing," she said. "I just didn't realize how much I missed you until now."

"Clara…?" Danny brought her to arm's length, bending slightly to look her in the eyes. "How long has it been?"

She didn't answer him.

"Clara? How long have you been traveling with the Doctor?"

"I haven't seen him in a very long time," she admitted quietly. "I've been travelling with another friend, just a friend this time, and we've got our own TARDIS and…"

"How long, Clara?"

"I don't know… years, decades, centuries… it's all the same to us."

Danny took that and thought; she looked almost exactly the same, with exception of her eyes. Still brown, still large, still adorable, but there was another quality to them that wasn't there when they kissed goodbye on the school stoop. "You're immortal, and you leave me tomorrow. That's what it is, yeah?"

"No; I'm frozen in my last heartbeat and you die tomorrow," she said. There was no use in lying to him because he'd know she was withholding information. He was so good at that, knowing when there were parts to the puzzle missing from his knowledge and she blamed the Army. "Ashildr is the immortal one. She's going to drop me off next, because I'm ready—ready to die."

"I… die tomorrow…?" he said, blinking curiously. "How? Where?"

"It will be an accident, but you will get to save the world even after you're gone, and even bring _him_ back," she replied in a panic. His eyebrows shot up in surprise at the mention of the little boy he'd only told her about once, the reason why there were nights he woke crying from a dead sleep. "I love you, Danny, and there is absolutely no one else I've told other than that. Those words belong to _you_ and you alone, across all of time and space, and if there's _anything_ I've said, that is the most honest thing."

"Oh Clara…" he frowned, pulling her towards him again. He stroked her hair and held her close, trying to take on her burden. Carefully, he led her over to the couch and sat her down, sitting next to her with his arm around her waist. "So it all changes tomorrow."

"Yeah; your death was… will be… so boring, but you will manage to be incredible anyhow." She leaned against his chest, so warm and inviting, and tried to hold back her tears. "I tried to get the Doctor to bring you back, but it didn't work. We _tried_ , we really did."

"At least you had him to help you through it," he said. "I still am not entirely fond of him, but you care about each other, which makes me believe that he'd do everything in his power for you."

"I can only imagine growing old with two people, and you and the Doctor are it," Clara sniffled. "There's so much I've wanted to do while traveling, and now I've done everything I can short of the adventure I wanted with you." She glanced up at him, surprised that he didn't seem the least bit nervous or afraid. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah; I'm on borrowed time anyhow," he nodded before leaning in to press a kiss to her lips. "Did you know if he got to go back to his parents safely?"

"I arranged it, so yeah. I had a bit of help, so since the family had been displaced and moved, we were able to plant memories of adopting a little boy like the one they lost. He knows better though, and he thanks you."

"I don't know how that will happen, but that will make it worth it," Danny said, tears beginning to form in his eyes as well. "Thank you—I thought I'd have to live with that for the rest of my life, but now I can face tomorrow in peace."

"…except, I don't think you have to, at least not right away," Ashildr said. The couple both turned around to see her standing in the flat, just outside the door of their TARDIS. "I'm glad you wanted to see him, Clara, because I found something that I think might be worth looking into."

"I take it you're the immortal one?" Danny asked as the stranger walked around the couch and plopped herself on his armchair. She had a book in her hand, opened to a specific page that had many High Gallifreyan glyphs.

"Correct—this is a specific chapter in the TARDIS's manual about the medical bay's functions," she explained. "There seems to have been some upgrading done to the equipment and whatnot between when they built the Doctor's TARDIS and ours, meaning we have some features that he doesn't even know about."

"…such as…?" Clara wondered.

" _'Chapter Nine, Section Twelve: How to Increase the Longevity of Non-Gallifreyanoid Lifeforms'_ ," she read. "Looks like we can get more than a few years out of him without changing his appearance in the slightest—from what the rest of the text is insinuating, even though your biological processes are more or less frozen, Clara, you could even get in that adventure you've told me so much about."

"What did you tell her?" Danny asked, looking back and forth between the women.

"Domestic bliss," Ashildr smirked. She leaned back in the armchair and smiled. "I wonder what it would be like, parking the TARDIS for a while, settling down, becoming an aunt—Ashley, I think. That's a name for girls now, isn't it?"

"In some places, yeah," Danny chuckled in disbelief. "How did the two of you travel for hundreds of years and not look in the manual for the medical bay?"

"Immortal," Ashildr shrugged.

"Effectively immortal," Clara added. She held her boyfriend's hand and kissed it, just like the Doctor did with hers all those years ago. "What do you say? One last adventure before we meet our ends?"

A moment of pause and then a grin crept across his lips. "For you, Clara? I'd love to."


End file.
